Come in No 6, your time has come again: Cult Sixties TV series The Prisoner returns

Caught on film: No 6 Jim Caviezel filming in a holiday resort on the west coast of Namibia in southern Africa

It was the cult Sixties television show that intrigued and enthralled a generation of viewers.

And now, after years of speculation and many a thwarted remake, The Prisoner is finally set to return to our screens.

The series charts the story of a former secret agent who is kidnapped by an unknown enemy and taken to an unnamed village where inmates are numbered but not named.

Patrick McGoohan, who died aged 80 in January, co-wrote the original script and played the main character – known only as prisoner Number Six.

He finds himself in a constant intellectual and emotional struggle with his captor, Number Two, played by different actors.

The new £10million series has been jointly produced by ITV and the American channel AMC. British actor Sir Ian McKellen, 70, takes on the role of Number Two while Number Six is played by Hollywood star Jim Caviezel, 41, who starred in The Passion Of The Christ.

The new series, which has six episodes, begins in the US next month, before being screened in Britain early next year.

There have been a few changes, though. The favoured mode of transport – the infamous Mini Mokes – have become a fleet of Nissan cars.

Original talent: Patrick McGoohan (left) in the first series of The Prisoner. He also co-wrote the original script

And the producers chose the location of Swakopmund, a German holiday
resort on the west coast of Namibia, in southern Africa, for the
remake, rather than Portmeirion in North Wales.

Stars: Jim Caviezel and Sir Ian McKellen, who takes the role of Number Two. Number Six and Number Two are in a constant emotional and intellectual battle

Dedicated fans will be relieved to know, however, that Rover, the large, white inflatable balloon that regularly incapacitated Number Six, has survived, as has Number Two’s malevolent catchphrase ‘Be seeing you.’

The original show ran for 17 episodes from 1967 to 1968 and was filmed in Portmeirion, the Italianate resort designed by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis in the Twenties.

Its bright colours, Baroque architecture and giant rhododendron bushes were integral to the show’s appeal.

Michele Buck, executive producer of the new Prisoner, said: ‘Portmeirion wouldn’t have worked.

It would be too whimsical now. You have to move on. The audience is more sophisticated. Namibia is spectacular to look at and is visually very, very strong.

‘The conceits of the original series are absolutely current today. There’s nothing old-fashioned.

'It is a modern idea. A man wakes up and he isn’t where he thought he was. He’s in a different place. He can’t get out and everyone else in that world is happy.

‘We didn’t want to change the style of the original Prisoner. It had humour. It was eccentric but it had running through it a grain of truth.’